


Hello. Goodbye.

by nishiki



Series: Thistle and Weeds [10]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Immortality, Klaus' powers, Loss, No Apocalypse, Sibling Bonding, Temporary Character Death, undead Klaus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 13:10:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18717727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nishiki/pseuds/nishiki
Summary: It was a routine mission and then everything turned to shit.





	Hello. Goodbye.

**April 2020**

Hours after they had come home, the only sound that was still echoing over and over and over in Diego’s ears was the shot that had fallen earlier. And though he was back home, slumped into the cushions of his favorite sofa in the living room, he could only see the awful scene unfold in front of his very eyes over and over and over again. Playing on repeat like some twisted little nightmare. He was not yet convinced that it wasn't a nightmare. He had tried pinching himself. He had tried punching Luther. Nothing worked. Nothing woke him up.

And, as he sat there staring blankly ahead, his siblings around him did the same. No one was talking and it took Diego a moment to realize that he had forgotten to breathe for a couple of seconds. Even breathing seemed too much, too loud of a sound. Klaus’ absence from the room was loud like a thunderstorm. It was glaring like those god-awful neon pink socks he had gotten for Christmas from Vanya and which he liked to wear to bed ever since.

Klaus was always freezing and he always had cold feet.

»What happened?« It was Allison who finally found it in herself to speak up but her voice was no louder than a hushed whisper, a secret in the dark of the night. » _What happened?_ «

※※※※※※※

The mission was a completely routine thing. They were just whooping the ass of a minor drug ring in downtown near the docks in some rundown warehouse. It was pretty simple. In and out in an hour, gathering all the drugs and tying up the bad guys for the police to catch them after the fact. Simple.

Nothing ever was this simple, though.

Diego had learned that a long time ago but that didn't make it any easier to wrap his head around it. However, never had it been clearer to Diego just how much could go wrong in a routine mission like that as he stood there in the back of the warehouse, ready to throw his knives at one of the bad guys yet restricted by the same bad guy holding Klaus in a chokehold.

The rest of their siblings were nowhere in sight but he could hear Ben’s usual roar somewhere in the front of the warehouse as he was probably fighting off those who escaped their siblings’ grasp. Diego had come in through the back door, meant to be sneaky and make sure that no one would attack his siblings out of the shadows. In the front of the warehouse, it was just Allison, Luther, Vanya and their ghost brother Ben. Five was meant to jump around the place and secure everything he deemed important from the offices around the place.

Klaus, to his great displeasure, had meant to stay closer to the others so that he wouldn't lose control over Ben in the wrong moment and risk their siblings’ well-being if Number Six suddenly disappeared. It was an unspoken truth, of course, that none of them particularly trusted Klaus to sneak around a warehouse full of all kinds of drugs all by himself. In the end, Klaus had decided that he’d rather help Diego as it seemed.

Now he had the muzzle of a gun pressed against his temple.

Klaus didn't look too terrified as he stood there in the grasp of his attacker. Maybe he didn't look terrified because he was convinced that Diego, his _big brother_ , would save him. This thought alone terrified Diego, though. That his _baby brother_ would put so much trust in him scared the crap out of him.

»Don't move or I’ll blow his fucking brains out!« The thug yelled. He seemed smart enough to be afraid of Diego and the rest of the Umbrella Academy. Smart enough, at least to threaten one of them at point blank.

»Oh, come on man, we can talk about that like rational people, right?« Klaus tried the nonchalant approach with a small chuckle as Diego didn't know what to do in this situation. One wrong move and his brother might die a horrible death right in front of him. He needed to weigh his actions carefully.

He didn't expect Klaus to actually jam his elbow in the ribs of his attacker to make a break for it before Diego could even think of a solution.

He didn't expect the shot either. He didn't expect the blood spraying right onto his own face. He didn't expect the second shot that rang out. He didn't expect his brother falling to the ground like a ragdoll - suddenly completely void of energy, of _life_. He just stared down at the body of his brother, at the hole in the back of his head and in his back, at the way his arms and legs were sprawled out or squashed under his body.

His brain didn't compute what it was seeing. He was certain that Klaus would get up any second now and laugh it off. He didn't. He just laid there and blood was pooling all around his head and his stomach. The first bullet had entered his back right underneath his shoulder blades, tore through his body - _tore through his lungs_ \- and left through his chest to end up stuck in one of the stone pillars of the warehouse. The first shot alone would have been deadly. The second shot had killed him instantly.

»I fucking warned you!«

His knife hit the other guy in the throat without Diego even looking up. He didn't look either as the man fell to the ground. He didn't hear his siblings call out for any of them. He just stood there, staring down at his brother on the ground.

Certainly, Klaus would get up any second now. He would laugh about it and complain about a slight headache. The bullet had just grazed the side of his head, right? He wasn't dead. There was no way he was dead.

»Klaus!« The shriek behind him almost made him jump. He had never heard Vanya make such a sound. And why did she? Klaus wasn't dead. There was no way he was dead. He was just fucking with them. He was a dramatic little bitch and he was just drawing out the moment as long as he could.

On the drive back home they were quiet. He was not used to so much silence among his siblings. Vanya was crying but she didn't make a sound. Allison was staring blankly ahead in the passenger's seat. Luther was driving them with a stony face and Five just stared at the body in the back of the van. They didn't have anything inside the van to cover their brother up with. Sure, they could have waited for the police and have them handle all of it but it didn't seem right.

Klaus was their brother and thus their responsibility. And now he just laid there in the back of their van, and he was dead.

The truth of it hadn't sunken in yet for Diego. Even as he stared at his dead brother and his pale, lifeless face, he couldn't accept this. He still waited for him to open his eyes and make some stupid joke.

Luther was the one to carry Klaus inside after they arrived at the home because Diego suddenly had no strength left in him anymore. It should be him and he knew it. It should be him taking care of the brother he had just lost but he could hardly move. He just walked after his brother and watched how Luther placed Klaus on the cot in the infirmary. Not even Mom could do anything for Klaus now.

It was Allison who gently wiped off the blood from Diego’s face a little later. He didn't even know how that happened. Was it the blood from the wound in Klaus’ chest? There was no exit wound that disfigured Klaus’ face. The bullet was still inside his head. He felt nauseous thinking like that and so he allowed Allison to lead him down to the living room where the rest of them had gathered. Five was already nursing a glass of stiff whiskey and none of this made any sense.

※※※※※※※

»Suddenly, Ben was gone.« Allison mumbled after a while. »We heard a shot and then Ben was suddenly gone.«

»He shot him.« Diego murmured but his own voice sounded so fucking far away all of the sudden. It didn't even seem to belong to him. Someone else was speaking. Someone who was not living and breathing a complete fucking nightmare right now. »H-He … He g-grabbed him and K-Klaus fought b-back and t-then he … he just shot him. S-S-Shot him in the back and then in the h-head.«

It had all happened so fast and now Klaus was dead. He was dead. He wouldn't come down for breakfast in a few hours to make fun of Five’s bad mood without coffee. He wouldn't come down and help mom cook breakfast for them. He wouldn't dance to the music from the radio in his pajamas while cooking the eggs or pancakes or whatever. He just wouldn't show up in a few hours when they would all gather to have breakfast. It didn't make any sense.

Even during all those years apart after they had all left the mansion, at least Diego had rest assured that his brother was out there somewhere. At least he had known that Klaus was alive. Yes, he had been deathly afraid to hear his brother had died or overdosed or anything but at least he had been out there. At least he had had the chance of finding his brother out there and help him if necessary. He couldn't help him now. He hadn't been able to help him in that situation. He had been useless. That guy had shot his brother point blank and he had been helpless to do anything.

A fine superhero he was.

»First Ben … Now Klaus.« Luther mumbled quietly into his giant paws as he put them over his mouth, apparently still in shock like the rest of them. Suddenly, Diego felt a little sorry for having punched him in the jaw. However, as he looked at his brother, he knew exactly what kind of thought was going through his head.

_First Ben, now Klaus. I’ve lost another one._

That was what Luther thought but couldn't say. Diego could tell because that was exactly what Diego was thinking as well. They had lost another one of them. It felt impossible to move on from here. It felt impossible to just go to bed, bury Klaus, have some sort of memento set up for the Seancé, and move on with their lives. Go on another mission, save more people, do what they usually did. They had gotten back together as a team and that had cost them yet another sibling. The experiment of the Umbrella Academy had failed. They had all failed. The team had failed. The mission had failed. Diego had failed.

»He always used to steal my make up when we were teens.« Allison whispered into the void of the room. Her whisper was like a shout in the silence that had settled over them. »And I always got so mad about it in the beginning. I remember yelling at him once that make-up was for girls only. And I felt so guilty afterward because he looked so sad … I never yelled at him after that day and showed him how to put on nail polish properly - before that, every time he tried, the nail polish ended up everywhere on his hands instead.«

He rose from his seat at once and staggered towards the door without looking at his siblings again.

»Where are you going?« Five inquired though he didn't sound that interested.

»I … I can't do this … I can't … stay down here.« He muttered and drove a hand through his hair. »I-I can't … Not when h-he’s a-all alone up there … He’s alone … A-A-And I-I can't do this-«

»We have to discuss what we are going to do now.« Luther said, falling back into old habits because that was the only way he knew how to deal with this situation. Being Number One was suddenly easier than being Luther. »We need to talk about … We need to talk about what we want to do with … with his corpse.«

He wanted to scream at his brother but as he looked at him, he could see the same sense of absolute loss and horror and confusion in Luther's eyes that he felt himself.

»I … I can't.« He repeated again. »T-T-Talking about h-his corpse- I can't do this … I can't.«

»Go.« Vanya spoke so softly that he almost didn't hear her over the racing thoughts in his head. Her brown eyes, though still full of tears, were soft and warm as she looked up at him and so was her hand as she brushed it gently over his left forearm. He didn't say anything else before he turned away from his family and left the room.

He walked on autopilot as he turned into the staircase hall and made his way up the stairs to the infirmary. He felt drawn back to Klaus’ dead body even though he knew it was dumb and futile and only served to torture himself more. And yet he arrived at the room and paused in the doorway. His dead brother was still there, still lying on the bed in the middle of the room and looked as if he was just asleep. It helped that the bullet had not exited his head so that there was no wound to be seen. He could ignore the giant hole in his chest after Mom had draped a blanket gently over him to cover most of his body.

As he sat down next to Klaus’ unresponsive body he felt stupid for doing so. Why was he torturing himself like this? Klaus was dead and here he was pretending as if he was just asleep. He had not shed a single tear yet. His eyes were burning, yes, but he had not shed a single tear until that moment as he sat down on the chair that he had pulled up to the bed and took Klaus’ hand in his own.

It was cold as ice - but then again, Klaus’ hands had always been cold. He had blamed his powers for that fact.

A lifetime ago, Diego remembered, Klaus told him that he was no one's favorite sibling in this family. He couldn't remember why or what led to this statement from Number Four but he remembered the crumpling smile on Klaus’ face vividly. They had been no older than thirteen, he thought. Five had still been there, the seven of them complete. They must have talked about their family as a whole, about how Allison and Luther always stuck together or how Five preferred to be around Vanya and Ben.

Ben and Klaus had always been close in some odd way that seemed to be based entirely on their powers that were both so equally hated by each of them and so equally morbid. Yet, it was also true that Ben had always been much closer to Five and even Vanya then Klaus - at least before his death. And Diego … Well, he had never been good at getting along with the others. He remembered, though, how sad Klaus’ eyes had looked as he had said those words. _I am no one’s favorite. No one prefers me over the others._

And Diego, being a thirteen-year-old child back then, hadn't had the courage to take Klaus’ hand and tell him with that hateful stutter of his that Klaus had always been _his_ favorite brother, that Diego had always preferred _Klaus_ over the rest of them. And now he was gone and he would never be able to tell him that.

It was this thought, that, at last, did the trick and made the burning in his eyes unbearable to the point were the tears just spilled over. Diego had never cried much in his life. He was not the type to cry. He was the type to get angry and throw things or punch people when he was upset or sad. Now, however, as he held onto Klaus’ cold stiff hand and looked down on his cold, stiff face, he couldn't help but cry.

»Why couldn't you just be still and wait?« He sobbed finally as the dam had already broken down. »Why couldn't you just let me handle it? Only once, you could have let me handle it! Why did you always have to be so reckless and stupid?«

Maybe it hurt even more that he would never get those questions answered by his ridiculous favorite sibling. And the worst part about all of this was that he needed to come to terms with that fact. Klaus was dead. There was no way around this. He was gone and-

Something fell to the ground right beside the bed. There was a sharp little clattering sound, almost a _pling_ , as if something metal fell to the tiles on the floor. As Diego glanced down and underneath the bed, he could see a small item on the stainless floor. At first, he didn't even recognize what he saw. It was a weird deformed lump of metal with a reddish tint. It took him a second to realize that the reddish tint came from blood and that the lump of metal was actually a bullet.

»What the-«

»My head hurts.« He almost fell down from his chair as he jolted back from the bed - not enough though to let go of Klaus’ hand. He expected to see his brother’s ghost hovering before him. He didn't expect to see Klaus’ beautiful green eyes open, though. »Hey … Dee, would you mind not breaking my hand?«

He let go of his hand immediately as he stared in horror how Klaus blinked lazily up at him, seemingly annoyed by the bright light of the infirmary's ceiling lamp. Immediately after letting go of his hand, however, Diego instead grabbed his wrist and placed two fingers over his pulse point. There it was. Steady and calm. Klaus was breathing and talking and he had a pulse and looked at Diego as if Diego had lost his mind. Had he? Maybe he had lost his mind. Maybe none of this had actually happened. Maybe his brother had never died. Maybe … Yes, what? Maybe what?

»What's wrong?« Klaus drawled and tried to sit up but Diego, out of reflex, pushed him back down. »You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. What happened? How did we get back?«

He didn't speak as he got up from his seat and hurried to the headrest of the bed. He didn't speak either as he grabbed Klaus’ curly head unceremoniously and lifted it enough to have a proper look at the back of his head. There was still all that dried blood in his hair but … there was no wound left. Nothing as he combed through his hair and pushed it aside to inspect his scalp almost a bit roughly.

»Hey … Hey, Diego, what's wrong?«

»What's the l-last t-thing you remember?« He asked and even to himself, his voice sounded hoarse and wrong and broken as he walked back to his chair instead. Klaus, however, looked at him confused.

»Well … We were on this mission … Something about drugs. Oh, wait … someone grabbed me and threatened me, right? I don't remember much after that.«

Diego felt his heart sink a little. It hadn't been a dream. Klaus remembered it. But he didn't remember dying. Had this really happened? Was this really happening? He could see the exact moment as realization dawned on Klaus' face then.

»Oh.« He breathed and slowly lifted his right hand to feel the back of his head. »I was shot, right?« he then mumbled but didn't sound too disturbed by the mere possibility of it - as if it was normal for him to die and come back. »I died, right?«

Without his consent, Diego breathed out another sob and before Klaus could do anything about it, he wrapped his arms about his little brother and pulled him upright and against his chest. »It doesn't matter.« He sobbed into Klaus’ hair and for once he didn't care that his brother saw him so weak and pathetic. It was Klaus, after all. While Ben had always been the best of them and the kindest, Klaus had always been the most understanding and the most tolerant, the most gentle and warm of them all, the one with the biggest heart who never judged any of them and who was, in return, always judged the hardest. »It doesn't matter.« He repeated because he couldn't say what he really wanted to say.

 _You are alive_ , he wanted to say. _I am glad you are alive. I am sorry I couldn't protect you_. Klaus wouldn't be Klaus, though, if he wouldn't understand the words that Diego couldn't say. He felt it in the way Klaus wrapped his own thin arms around Diego’s back after a moment of hesitation and leaned his head against his shoulder.

»I promise« Klaus muttered into Diego’s shoulder. »Next time, I’ll listen to you.«


End file.
